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Russia Cancels All Moon Missions Till 2025 (sputniknews.com)

schwit1 writes: Faced with a shrinking budget and poor economic conditions, Russia has once again trimmed back its proposed ten-year space plan for the next decade in space, canceling all Moon missions until after 2025. Russian might now have a giant government-run aerospace corporation, but flying space missions is not really its primary task. Like all government agencies divorced from profit and loss, its primary task is really to provide pork barrel jobs, regardless of whether those jobs do anything useful or not. Thus, Russia will have a very expensive space program for the next decade, but the money spent will not accomplish much of anything new.

25 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. No story bias here... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nice unbiased "story". It's always fun to read the editorials at Slashdot.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:No story bias here... by Adriax · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This isn't biased. This is so far tilted towards capitalist supremacy it's almost horizontal.
      It's like a piece of anti-commie propaganda from 1969 got republished with some dates mixed up.

      I'm actually afraid not cheering the article on will result in my username being put on a House Unamerican Activities Committee list.

      --
      I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
    2. Re:No story bias here... by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Government exists because it has the most guns

      No matter what, rudimentary game theory guarantees that somebody is going to have the most guns. And by definition, they'll be in charge.

      Better a legitimate government than some warlord, mobster or oligarch.

    3. Re:No story bias here... by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Government exists, because no human society over a few dozen members can ever hope to manage their society without it. It isn't some entity separate from society, it is inherent in any large society. Even largely hunter-gatherer societies still have rules, but generally have the enforcement of those rules can be done by the group itself.

      Do you seriously imagine that any large scale agrarian or industrial society could ever manage itself without government? Or are you truly one of those insane wingnut Libertarian Anarchist types who thinks you could so much as build a bridge without some sort of management?

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:No story bias here... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's interesting is they don't even mention that Russia's rockets are still what we're relying on to get people and supplies to the ISS right now. Yeah, it's not sexy in the least - but they're doing something we currently can't (which is ludicrous)!

      Hopefully SpaceX will be changing that in a few years; but that old saw about "people who live in glass houses" comes to mind...

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    5. Re:No story bias here... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm actually afraid not cheering the article on will result in my username being put on a House Unamerican Activities Committee list.

      I'm not worried - I've got photos of J. Edgar Hoover in a dress held in several safe locations around the world. If anything happens to me, those images go straight to Woodward and Bernstein!

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    6. Re:No story bias here... by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      I would read that story between the lines. Hmm, spending more on the space program and not many launches. I would consider that a development cycle. Developing new orbit achieving technology costs a lot of money and for commercial and other reasons is kept very secret until the launch or major construction cycle begins but until then all the engineering et al is done in strict secret apart from of course the size of the budget and funnily enough where large portions of that money is not being spent.

      So you will hear about a lot of money being spent, you will just not hear where, until they are ready to say. The more being spent and the less being heard, the greater the advance being made, it is just the way of things. Big things are definitely happening in the various space programs.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    7. Re:No story bias here... by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You built your own company. Did you also invent your own currency whose value is accepted by everyone else? Did you also invent your own way to handle contract disputes without any legal framework? Do you sell anything that requires things to be transported across roads? Do you use the the phone or the internet to conduct business in any way?

      Funny how you can build your own company from scratch without doing all those other things.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    8. Re:No story bias here... by andydread · · Score: 2

      Well the only examples I've ever seen where there is no government is Somalia, Waziristan, Afghanistan and the like. Basically what the anti-goverment people fail to forget is that there is a thing called human nature and with the lack of government you have a warlord society.

      If roads and bridges were built based on market needs then only big cities would have roads and bridges.

  2. Always nice to see commonality between old foes by NotDrWho · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Thus, Russia will have a very expensive space program for the next decade, but the money spent will not accomplish much of anything new.

    So, just like the U.S. then?

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re:Always nice to see commonality between old foes by DigiShaman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Glut in the oil market = no extra money to spend. Tis why Russia is pissed at Saudi Arabia.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:Always nice to see commonality between old foes by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Tis why Russia is pissed at Saudi Arabia.

      You gotta hand it to the Saudi's, they know how to play it for the longer run. High oil prices cause R&D into alternative energy and marginal oil fields. It takes a while to ramp those up.

      Whenever the alternatives and marginal fields are close to kicking in, pull the plug on prices and frustrate investors. Wait a few years and the alternatives fade, giving you a near monopoly. Burnt investors then won't play again in the future, knowing the rug will again be pulled out from under them.

      Rinse, repeat, profit.

  3. Aerospace is National Security by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not that the Russian government isn't incredibly corrupt and wasteful, but this is actually probably what you'd want to do. If your economy is tanking, you'd want to continue to put *some* money into aerospace for as long as you could to retain talent and prevent you from having to rebuild it from the ground up later. Maybe not enough to do big ambitious projects, but you'd want aerospace on "idle" for when (hopefully) the economy improves.

    I mean, NASA stopped building big rockets that went to the moon and "just" went into low earth orbit for a few decades, and they're *still* basically back at square one when it comes to building Saturn V-sized engines. Imagine if aerospace had been completely shut down.

  4. Or maybe by tomhath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Russia has decided that a manned space missions aren't worth the cost and risk.

  5. That summary by poity · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can see from my commenting history that I have no love for Russia, but that summary... what are you trying to pull?

    --
    your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
  6. Keep your opinions to yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do we really need the juvenile editorializing like you did in the line below?

    "Like all government agencies divorced from profit and loss, its primary task is really to provide pork barrel jobs, regardless of whether those jobs do anything useful or not."

    Really? REALLY? Grow up and get some street smarts. The real world is far different than what you state above.

    Stick to the news until you have a clue how the real world works. Is there waste and port barrel jobs in government? Absolutely. But that's the primary task of all government agencies? Jeesh. /. out to require a basic understanding of high school civics to avoid your kind of childish, pollyanna thinking.

    And meanwhile, the OP ought to spend some time around the countless government agencies and people who work very hard and succeed in making all of our lives better. It would be a real eye-opener.

    Signed,

    First time poster after hundreds of hours over years of lurking.

  7. More sanctions by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Faced with a shrinking budget and poor economic conditions, . . .

    This can't be right. Every Russian troll everywhere will tell you there is nothing wrong in Russia. The sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and theft of Crimea are having no effect. Everything is fine.

    Yet these same trolls can't explain why their banks keep failing, why their biggest quasi-bank, VEB, needs $13 billion to keep itself afloat, why every other week another article comes out, such as this one, saying more and more programs are getting cut or eliminated, why pensioners are having their money allowance reduced, or why, based on current projections, Russia will run out of money before the end of 2016.

    Corrupt fascist oligarchs such as Putin will tend to have this effect on a country, especially when the mothers of the Russian soldiers killed invading Ukraine are not allowed to talk about their son's deaths because deaths of soldiers during "peace time" are state secrets.

    The longer Russia keeps invading and attacking its neighbors, the more it keeps trying to bully its neighbors, the longer sanctions will stay. The trolls can whine all they want about the sanctions not having any effect, but the louder they squeal the more one knows they're hurting.

    There's a reason former Soviet bloc countries have embraced the freedoms of the West rather than the repression of Soviet Russia. They know all too well the indignities and injustice served upon them by Russia. Witness the deportations of Tartars from Crimea, the daily raids on Tartar homes to see if there is any "subversive" material, the refusal by the Russians to allow Tartars to speak their own language or have their own schools.

    Russia will suffer until it either dies or changes. Unfortunately the Russian people are too stupid to make change happen.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    1. Re:More sanctions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Full of hate toward Russia and little knowledge about outside what MSM told you about!

      And, NO, the Russia's propaganda report all the events of bad economy to their people:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5X3WYm_3U

      Just watching how Avakov and Yatseniuk was in fight with Saakashvili early this month. And Saakashvili's report on Yatseniuk corruption, etc.
      Don't you know about the 'lustration' law which bans ALL officials worked for old government without judgment.
      Corrupt fascist oligarch Putin have not billion dollars like "democrazy" president Poroshenko, who have more money after the "revolution", who vowed to "against" oligarchs (like himself).

      Ukraine which the West region like Lvov, where Bandera is much worshiped, was part of Poland, which Stalin captured. Other part of the W. Ukraine was the result of expansion of Czars.
      The E. Ukraine was the Russian land before Lenin and Khruschev merged to Ukraine.

      While you so much hate Russia, and Russian people, the Russians seems to be more balanced. Even the so-called "propaganda" machine RT list SpaceX as one of the most breakthrough events in 2015:
      https://www.rt.com/news/327242-top-space-discoveries-2015/

    2. Re:More sanctions by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      It's Tatars, not Tartars.

  8. in soviet russia we moon you! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Funny

    in soviet russia we moon you!

  9. Re:Eh by Coren22 · · Score: 2

    The moon would be a good place to do the refining from the asteroid mining. Some gravity, but not so much it makes it hard to launch, and little atmosphere to worry about contaminating the metals. Doing smelting in freefall would be difficult, as the separation of impurities only works well under gravity.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  10. Citation needed by iamacat · · Score: 2

    I hate Putin, but the links in this story do not support its conclusion. What is the total budget for Russian space program? What other missions are planned? Has anyone quantified waste versus useful work?

    It could be that moon is just not the most scientifically or commercially important target right now and they are focusing on more interesting missions. Obama reached the same conclusion a few years back while INCREASING total NASA budget to focus on Mars exploration.

  11. In related news, by melted · · Score: 2

    I'm also cancelling all my purchases of Italian supercars until 2025 due to budget constraints.

    There's no story here folks. Russia is still flying designs from the late 60s. Even at the height of the Soviet power they did not manage to build a rocket with enough lift capability to take humans to the moon. They sure as heck can't do this now. Their space exploration has been confined to LEO for more than a decade. Old guard has retired and/or died off, the best and brightest are leaving the country in droves. It can't be done there. Shit, it can barely be done over here.

  12. Re:The United States funds and fully supports ISIS by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    I keep hearing this conspiracy theory, but all I ever get are links to conspiracy theory sites

    Does a long paper from a Pulitzer-awarded journalist accounts as conspiracy?

  13. Re:The United States funds and fully supports ISIS by rwa2 · · Score: 2

    Thanks for that! Good reading.

    Here's one of the heavily-citationed "conspiracy theory" sites that also does a good job piecing together and presenting the story:
    http://stormcloudsgathering.co...

    TL;DR: ISIS is doing 'Murrica's work with 'Murrican weapons. They're just the latest in a long chain of manipulated boogeymen. This is really the only practical way to drag democracies into foreign wars to keep the non-Western economies down and keep the US$ propped up as the only currency for the international oil market.

    I actually take some comfort in this, because it does a great job explaining how we're #winning.